Zeroes

Chapter 9: Scam

"LET'S GET THIS OVER WITH, PEOPLE," THE GUNMAN was saying. "We all want a nice quick job here, right?"

He sounded like he meant it.

Ethan stared at the man in the hockey mask. He felt anesthetized. The shock of the gunshot was wearing off, replaced with a wave of numbness. Like someone was pumping liquid valium into his veins. He knew he should feel more panic, but all he could think about was that he really wished he'd taken a leak before leaving the diner. All that awful coffee, plus lying facedown on a cold marble floor, was doing no favors to his bladder.

He shifted his head to see the rest of the room. The whole place had fallen to its knees in one movement. People had screamed when the first shot went into the ceiling, and yet still dropped. Like they couldn't wait to get to the ground. Even the security guard, who'd had a gun pointed right at his face until he'd tossed his own aside, seemed weirdly calm.

The quiet felt unreal.

Ethan looked at where Sonia lay, one cheek against the floor. She seemed as spacey as he felt. Her phone was clutched in her hand like a talisman, something bulletproof. She gazed back at Ethan, her eyes shiny in the morning light that streamed through the bank. He tried to give her a reassuring smile. She didn't smile back.

He took a wary glance at the men with guns. Far as he could tell, none of them was the Craig. These guys were all too skinny. In Ethan's mind, Craig's neck had taken on epic proportions. Like maybe it was the thickest part of his entire body.

Okay. So this whole robbery thing had nothing to do with Ethan's stolen duffel bag full of money. It was just an amazingly shitty coincidence. The perfect end to his night.

He eased the bag closer to him, willing it to disappear against his body.

The gunman was talking again. "We all want to get out of here safely and enjoy the rest of our lives, don't we?"

Ethan found he did-he really, really did. Still, it was kind of perverse for a guy to keep talking about safety while he was carrying the biggest gun Ethan had ever seen. If the gunman hadn't unloaded that thing so convincingly into the ceiling, it might've passed for something out of a cartoon. Plaster was still drifting through the air like fake snow in a crappy school play.

The two other gunmen were behind the tills, scrambling through cash. Funny how they were the least calm people in the room. With their hockey masks and frantic movements, they seemed to belong to some separate, insectoid branch of humanity. The sort of creature that didn't care about getting home safely.

Ethan felt a spasm of fear low in his gut. But then, just like that, it was gone again, smoothed over by the valium in the air.

"The vault's shut!" one of the gunmen shouted. "Someone pushed the panic button!"

He started swearing. He seemed to swear for a long time without breathing.

The guy with the giant gun lowered his aim, till the barrel was pointed at his own toes. Ethan reflected calmly how that seemed like a really bad idea. That same gun had taken out a sizable part of the ceiling, and the guy was already limping. He probably couldn't afford to lose a foot.

Now he was tapping the rifle muzzle against the marble floor. Glaring at the customers like the locked vault was their fault.

Ethan tried to become one with the marble.

Beside him Sonia let out a whimper.

"Time to move," Big Gun said. "Bag the cash. I'll see what I can scrape up from the civilians."

The other two scrambled into motion. They began stuffing wads of cash into the canvas bags they'd brought with them. A bill floated down and landed a few feet from Ethan's face. A fifty.

He was in no way tempted to reach for it.

Big Gun was walking through the crowd slowly, his hockey mask swinging left and right. He was sizing them up, maybe trying to work out who had the most money in their pockets. Ethan's hand tightened on the straps of his duffel bag.

Suddenly Big Gun knelt. There was a muffled shriek from an elderly woman in a patterned dress.

"It's okay," Big Gun said. "Just taking your watch, ma'am."

At least he was polite. Which only made him scarier. The woman let out small sobbing noises, but she let him have the watch.

Ethan shut his eyes to stop himself from staring at the duffel bag.

Footsteps came toward him across the marble floor, keeping time with the pulse going off in Ethan's neck.

Big Gun was nearby. "Nice ring, little girl."

"It's nothing" came Sonia's voice, defiant.

"Then you won't mind if I take it."

Ethan opened his eyes. Sonia's hand was wrapped around her phone. On her middle finger was a ring with two concentric circles overlapping. Like owl eyes.

When the gunman reached down, she drew back her hand. "They're not real diamonds or anything. They're totally fake."

The man seemed to hesitate.

"Just give him the ring!" Ethan hissed.

"Do what your boyfriend says," Big Gun told her.

Sonia glared at Ethan. "He's so not my boyfriend!"

But at least she pulled the ring off and sent it rolling across the floor. The gunman swept it up.

He stayed on one knee, his hockey mask hanging in the corner of Ethan's vision.

"Hey, kid. What you got in the bag?"